Category Archives: Life in the Catskills
An Old Friend in the Woods.
24-Aug-20Autumn Once More
17-Oct-19On Growing Lilies
25-Feb-17Dammam A brief piece I wrote for the Catskill Native Plant Society.
Pawpaw Season.
25-Oct-16Over the past week, Catherine has made a pawpaw cream pie, pawpaw pancakes, and we’ve had pawpaw ice cream made locally. I’ve been pretty impressed at how useful pawpaws can be. And I’m amazed that this the largest native North American fruit has never made it into American cuisine until now, because it fits in […]
April Snowfall.
05-Apr-16We returned to the cabin and found spring just beginning in the mountains. Down in the Rondout Valley the hepatica (H. acutiloba) bloomed March 30; the bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) the following day; April 2nd saw spring-beauty (Claytonia carolina) bloom on Wildcat Mountain. And then on April 3rd the snow came, in the middle of the […]
November Without Snow.
30-Nov-15Winter Approaches.
30-Nov-15Many people in the Catskills dread the winter, but I do not. I get to work outdoors at the nursery from spring until the arrival of winter, and even when I am not working there I am often gardening at my cabin or hiking in the mountains. The result is eight good months of constant […]
At Home.
05-Oct-15Spring Cleaning.
22-Mar-15In the mountains, spring cleaning is not merely a phrase. In order to create traction the roads are coated with sand, which of course mixes with the snow and becomes part of the coloration of one’s boots and automobile for the length of winter. I am always amazed at how my boots manage to discolor […]
Twenty Months.
01-Sep-17North Highlands Catherine has taken the children down to New York City, stopping there briefly before heading west. I am left alone in the cabin for the last few days of summer. After Labor Day I will join Catherine in Ohio, where we will spend the final month of Catherine’s pregnancy, awaiting the birth of our third […]